Twenty-Four Amazon Selling Tips, Learn How to Sell on Amazon

By: Skip McGrath Last Updated: January 15, 2019

Amazon
is the world's largest online retail selling site. When most people buy
something on Amazon, they think they are buying from Amazon. But, third
party sellers sell over 45% of all items sold on Amazon.

I started my online selling career on eBay in 1999. In 2006 I became a
seller on Amazon. Our Amazon business never really took off until 2010, when
I joined the Amazon FBA program (I will explain this below). In late 2018 we
made the decision to stop selling on eBay. However, we are still going
strong with Amazon.

Wondering How to Become an Amazon Seller?

It is very easy to register to sell on Amazon. Scroll to the bottom of the Amazon
home page and you will see a list that looks like this:

Click on the link that says Sell on Amazon and you will go to a page that looks like this:

Click on either the link to Sell as a Professional
(recommended - for why see below) or Sell as an Individual.
Amazon will walk you through the steps to get started. They are very
simple and you can start selling your first items within about 5
minutes.

Tips to Make More Money Selling on Amazon

1. Register as a professional seller - There are several reasons to do this:

As an individual seller, Amazon charges you 15% Selling commission plus
99¢ per sale. The fee to become a professional seller is $39.95
per month, but as a pro seller you are only charged 15% --and not the extra 99¢. So, if you sell 40 items per
month or more, you will actually save money on fees. (Unless you plan
to make at least 40 sales per month -you should not be wasting your
time selling on Amazon).

As a professional seller, you are allowed to create listings for
products that are not currently being sold on Amazon. You can also
create product bundles, which we will show you how to do later, as they
are a great way to increase your profits. (Creating your own listings
will help you reach those 40 sales per month more quickly).

Amazon has several categories that are restricted, and you must apply to
sell in these (clothing, shoes, jewelry and auto accessories are just a
few). You must be a pro seller to apply to sell in these categories.

You can Manage inventory using feeds, spreadsheets, and reports

You can take advantage of Promotions, gift services, and other special
listing features

Here is the most important one: Only professional sellers Eligible for
listing placement in the Buy Box (Over 78% of all Amazon sales originate in
the buy box)

2. Sell with FBA
- FBA stands for Fulfillment By Amazon. This is a program whereby you send
all of your merchandise into Amazon, and when it sells, Amazon ships it for
you.
In FBA Amazon also handles customer service, communications and returns and
refunds.

Since we moved from merchant fulfilled to FBA, our sales have increased by
a factor of 5X. It is true that fees in FBA are higher than merchant
fulfilled, but your merchandise will sell so much faster, that you will
still make greater profits. And some of those fees are offset by the cost
of boxes and shipping materials that Amazon supplies as part of the fee.

In addition, consider the huge time-saving factor of not having to individually
wrap and ship 20 to 30 packages a day. This allows you more time to do
high-value tasks such as product research and sourcing.

3. Follow the Rules
- just like eBay, Amazon has lots of rules and regulations, but unlike eBay,
they are fairly stable. Amazon does not change their rules and policies as
often as eBay, so once you learn them they are easy to understand and
follow. Once you log into Seller Central, you can access
this page that has the overall Amazon policy agreement.

To find specific policies on selling, log into Seller Central and click on
the help button. Then type Amazon policy into the search bar. When the page
comes up look in the left hand column and you will see a detailed list of
the various policies related to all of your Amazon activities.

Amazon also has a great resources page for FBA sellers. Log into Seller Central first
and use
this link to access the resources.

4. Win the Buy Box to Increase Your Sales
- Whenever a buyer does a search, several results come up. When the buyer
clicks on one of the results, the page that comes up is the buy box.
According to Amazon over 78% of all sales are made through the buy box, so
winning the buy box is crucial to your success.

There are three ways to win the buy box every time:

Be the lowest price including shipping.
If a seller's account is in good standing and they are the lowest price
including shipping, their product will go in the buy box ahead of other
sellers. Note however, if a seller is in FBA, then Amazon assumes their
shipping cost to be zero. The reason for this is that Amazon Prime
members get free 2-Day shipping on all products and all other Amazon
buyers get free standard shipping on any item or shipment that totals
over $35.

Here is an example: I am selling a set of chef's knives for $129 +
$9.90 shipping. So the total with shipping is $138.90. If an FBA seller
has those same set of knives, he or she can price them at $137.90,
which is $8.90 over my selling price of $129, but $1 under my total
price and he will win the buy box because Amazon assumes his shipping
cost is zero.

Sell an item than no one else has. If you find a unique item and list it on Amazon, since you are the
only seller, you will have the buy box every time. (One way to do this
is by creating and selling your own private label.)

Use Amazon's bundling Policy to Create Unique Items. If someone is selling the same item as you are on Amazon,
think of creative ways to create a unique product bundle. For example,
one of the products I sell is a set of three different tools used by
espresso machine owners.

By creating a bundle of three different items (all sold separately on
Amazon), I created a unique item and win the buy box every time (until
someone copies me, which sometimes happens).

You can also combine products to create a unique item. This is a set of 4 kitchen knives I bundled together with a knife sharpener.

You can combine almost anything to create unique product
bundles. The one rule, however, is if you create a bundle that
includes a media item such as a book or a DVD, you cannot list
it in the media category and you cannot combine media products
with other media products.

The final item Amazon looks at to determine the buy box is
your account metrics. For example, I have one product that is
priced about 15% higher than two main competitors of the same
item... I have 100% positive feedback. One of the competitors has
90% feedback and the other other one is at 92%. Because of that,
I dominate the buy box on this item.

5. Answer Customer Communications quickly
- When you get a question from a customer, Amazon wants you to answer it
within 24 hours and if you do not, that is a demerit against your account.

You can see customer questions in your Seller Central just to the left of
the page, and you can set up your account so customer questions are
forwarded to your email. That way you can answer them even if you are not
currently working on Amazon. With smart phones you can even answer them
from your phone.

6. If you are merchant fulfilling ship all orders within 1 business day
and always enter the tracking information
- Amazon requires you to state the handling time for all products and to
meet that expectation. Not doing so can lead to losing featured seller
status, and if your numbers are really bad, you can lose your account.

7.Don't trust UPC codes when listing items
- When you have an item for sale, you enter the UPC code into the Amazon
page where it says Add a Product. When you do this, if the item you are
selling is in the Amazon, it will bring up a pre-populated listing. But, it
is your responsibility to make sure the item you are selling
is the exact same item as listed on Amazon.
What happens is that manufacturers update their products with a different
color or new features, and they don't always change the UPC code.

This happened to me a couple of years ago. I bought some home security
camera systems from a liquidation outlet. Unbeknownst to me, the reason the
manufacturer sold to the liquidator was they had improved the item by
adding a recordable disk drive but they did not change the UPS code. So, I
listed my item and when it sold I got everyone of them returned along with
a couple of bad feedbacks.

It is your responsibility to make sure that what you are selling on Amazon
is exactly like the product in the listing. Not only look
at the photographs closely but read the full description and the specs to
make sure what you are selling is the 100% identical product.

8. Describe products accurately
- This may seem like a no-brainer, but believe me if there is even the
slightest difference between the product you are delivering and what you
describe in your listing, customers will notice. This will lead to returns,
negative feedback and account suspension warnings from Amazon.

9. Ask for Feedback
- Amazon buyers seldom leave feedback unless you ask them. I currently use
Kilby.
This is a third-party service that automatically sends out an email to each
customer telling that if there is anything whatsoever wrong with the
transaction to let us know and give us a chance to fix it.

The emails are sent out automatically and contain a link for your buyer to
click on and leave feedback.

After 5 years on Amazon my feedback was still under 50. My feedback is now over 750. And those emails
helped me prevent several negative feedback situations when customers
contacted me first before leaving feedback.

10. Use Larger Images and Follow Amazon Image Guidelines
- Amazon now requires images to be at least 1006 pixels on a side in
certain categories and encourages it in all categories.

The reason is the large size allows for buyers to use the zoom feature.
Amazon also has other rules for their main image including that the product
be shown on a plain white background. Log into Seller Central and
Click here
to see the entire listing of Amazon image guidelines.

11. Solicit Seller Feedback and Product Reviews -
Typically only 1% of Amazon buyers leave seller feedback, and even fewer fill
out product reviews. So most sellers use an automated service to boost these
results. Amazon now has very strict rules related to soliciting seller feedback
and product reviews. It is important you use a service that follows these
policies, or Amazon may shut down your account.

According to Amazon, high percentage seller feedback can increase the percent of
time you spend in the buy box, and positive product reviews can increase sales
on those items by over 15%.

My favorite service for doing this is
Kilby. Since transferring my business to
Kilby, my seller feedback and product reviews have increased dramatically,
Importantly, they follow and comply with all of Amazonís feedback and product
review policies.

12. Reduce Storage fees with Just in Time (JIT) Inventory Management
- Just In Time (JIT) refers to getting your inventory to Amazon just before
it runs out. This way you minimize the time items are in storage and
therefore tracking storage fees. This also means you have less cash tied up
in inventory at any one time.

Amazon offers a feature called Replenishment Alerts. You can set an alert
for fast-selling products. You can set the alert at the number of units or
weeks of cover. I know how long it takes me to order most of my products,
get them delivered to me and then to Amazon, so I tend to use "Weeks of
cover" for my ordering threshold. When the item reaches the specified
limit, Amazon sends you an email. Here is what you see when you set
replenishment alerts:

To set an alert, find the item in your Manage Inventory file. Click the
edit button and look for Set Replenishment Alert and select that. This will
bring up the item so you can set the alert.

13. Raise your Average Selling Price (ASP) to reduce your fees and increase profit margins
- One of the main FBA fees is the handling fee which is $2.02 for standard sized items.

Now, if you are selling an item for $12.99, the handling fee ($2.02) takes
15.5% of your margin. But sell an item for $27.95 and those two fees are
only 7.2% of your margin.

Here is another example. These are three products I am selling in Amazon
FBA and their total FBA fees:

Item

Selling Price

Fees

Fees as a % of Margin

Silk wrap bracelet

$14.99

$5.42

36.2%

Salt & Pepper Mill Set

$89.97

$16.87

18.7%

Stick Blender

$144.00

$23.35

16.2%

So, as you can see, the higher you go up in price, the lower your fees are as a
percentage of your sale. So, as you source inventory, look for products with
a higher average selling price.

My goal is an ASP of $35.00. I have not hit that yet but am working towards
it. (I am currently just over $31 ASP.) The reason is I have several fashion
jewelry products that sell for under $20, but I keep them because they are
insanely profitable. My cost on those items is between $3.50 and $6.00, so
even with the high fees, I am still making good money.

14. Label your items and shipments correctly when sending to FBA
- Believe me, I know from experience it is very easy to mislabel products.
When you put a shipment together create some type of system to double check
that each product has the correct label.

I once mixed up some bracelet labels. The bracelets were identical except
for the color of the stones. I put the label for the bracelets with the
blue stones on the packages of the bracelets with the clear stones and vice
versa. I didn't discover the problem until I got a negative feedback from a
customer who received a bracelet with white stones when she ordered blue. I
was able to get the feedback reversed, but it was costly (see next tip).

My system now involves a checklist and we do not package items in such a
way that we cannot see the item through the package, which allows us to
perform a double check as we are putting the items in the box to ship.

15. Go the extra mile to remove negative feedback
- Whenever I get a neutral or negative feedback, the first thing I do is
immediately email the customer with a very sincere apology, and I include a
$10 Amazon gift card as a token of my sincerity.

I do not ask the customer to remove the feedback in that email. What
happens is the customer usually writes me back thanking me for caring and
for the gift card. I then answer that email and do two things; I explain
how the error was made, and I request that they remove the feedback.

In the case of the bracelet issue I mentioned above, the woman was still
upset because the bracelet was a gift and a new one could not get there in
time. So I offered to mail a replacement bracelet to her sister whom the
gift was for. We even gift wrapped it and sent it priority mail so she got
it in time, and I did that at no charge. She finally agreed to remove the
feedback.

In all honesty, this works about 70% to 80% of the time. There are just some
customers who are so angry they won't budge, so there is nothing you can do
about that but live with the feedback. But if you can get over half of the
bad feedbacks removed you can stay ahead of the game. Note: the magic
number with Amazon is 95%. If you fall below that, you automatically lose
your featured seller status and your account is in danger of being
cancelled.

16. Pack your shipments to Amazon correctly to avoid damage, delays and penalty fees
- Amazon has some fairly strict requirements when you send items to their FBA warehouses. Here are some of their rules:

Choose the correct size box for your units. If you choose too large a
container, you will need to fill it will sufficient packaging material so
that the box will not collapse under the weight of heavier boxes during the
shipping and receiving process. For best results, use a new, single-wall,
corrugated shipping container with a high-burst or crush-strength stamp

Use a rigid box with flaps intact

If you are reusing boxes from previous shipments, be sure to remove
any previous shipping labels or bar codes to avoid confusion by the
carrier.

Wrap all items separately

Use adequate packaging material

Use strong tape designed for shipping

Do not use string or paper over-wrap

Do not use loose cut paper or Styrofoam pellets for void filler
(This is an Amazon regulation).

Use a single address label that is clear, complete with all
delivery and return information

Use two inches of cushioning between each of your units and the
inside of the box.

Neither point-of-sale containers nor pallet-sized boxes, also known
as "Gaylord's," may be used.

Boxes cannot be bundled together using bagging, taping, elastic, or
extra straps. Each box must be separate from the other boxes in the
shipment

If you are reusing a retail box to ship different products (for
example, a large printer box to ship smaller media products), be
sure to cover or remove any scannable barcodes on the outside of
the box to avoid confusion during the receiving process.

There are other rules, as well that you need to know about.

Suffocation labels - Any poly bag with an opening of 5 inches or
larger requires a suffocation label on the bag.

Poly bag your bundled items. We used to ship bundled items in
shrink-wrap but Amazon now requires all bundled items to be poly
bagged.

You may not ship any glass container containing liquids or gels
(this includes products like honey or jam) in glass jars larger
than 4 ounces.

Expiration Dates - If you are sending any food items (including pet
foods and treats) that have expiration dates, Amazon requires an
expiration date label on both the outside shipping carton and on
the product. The date must be at least 6 months out when you send
it to Amazon. As the product nears its date if it has not sold
Amazon will destroy it. Amazon also requires expiration dates on
certain health & Personal care item such as vitamins and
supplements.

All of the packaged items you send to Amazon must pass a 5-foot
drop test (This does not apply to products sent in the
manufacturer's retail box)

If an item arrives at Amazon without a product label, or
suffocation label or requires Amazon to do any special handling
prior to storing, you will be assessed a handling fee of 75¢
per item and you will receive a policy violation warning notice.

17. Manage Your Inventory proactively
- Amazon assigns sales ranks to all products based on the recency and
quantity of the sale. So, whenever you run out of inventory, the sales rank
of that product just drops every day there is no product there. I had one
product I import from China that was a big seller with a sales rank of less
than 2000 in the kitchen category. Since I order them in large quantities,
it took a while to replace them when they ran out. Within 30-days of not
having that product in stock, the sales rank sank to over 60,000. It took
two months of selling just to get the sales rank back up to the 10,000
area.

So the lesson here is to manage your inventory so you don't run out of
anything. You should know how long it takes to get an order placed, shipped
to you and shipped to Amazon. This is especially important as you approach
seasonal holidays when shipments slow down and sales can suddenly
accelerate quickly.

18. Use Amazon FBA to Fulfill Your Multi-Channel Orders
- If you sell on eBay, Etsy, Sears.com or your own website, you can use
Amazon to fulfill your orders from those sites. If you look at your FBA
inventory page, one of the action dropdowns is Create Fulfillment Order. See image:

When you select an item and click on go, you get a page where you fill in the
buyer's name and shipping address that looks like this.

Since this is an actual fulfillment order I have blacked out some of the
contact info. But what you do here is enter all of the buyer's information and
then click continue and you get a screen that looks like this:

Notice the shipping charge is $5.95. That is quite a bit less than UPS or
Priority Mail. This may not be the best example, as this product is quite
small and light and I could also ship cheaper by first class mail, but I
use an automation service called
Joelister, which
automates this process for me. When an item sells on eBay, it
deducts the item from my FBA inventory, creates a fulfillment order
automatically and automatically puts the tracking info into eBay as soon as
Amazon generates it. And, if I run out of stock, it zeroes out the eBay
listing so I don't sell something I don't have.

19. Negotiate Exclusive Selling Arrangement with suppliers
- In tip #4, I told you one way to win the buy box every time is to have an
item to sell that no one else has. One way to do this is to find products and
manufacturers that will give you the exclusive deal to sell on Amazon. Here
is how I do that:

I attend a lot of wholesale trade shows. When I am there I look for smaller
manufacturers. In many cases the owner of the company is right there in the
booth. At the last Seattle Gift show we found a small jewelry company that
makes everything in the USA. Both owners were at the show. I asked
if they sold to eBay and Amazon sellers and they said they did not. So, I
went into my pitch.

"You know the reason many small companies like yours don't want to sell on
eBay and Amazon is that sellers start lowering your prices below what your
brick and mortar retailers sell at, and this get them upset with you.

So, what I do is represent companies exclusively on eBay and Amazon so I can
hold your MAP prices.

I also look out for your brand online and let you know if anyone is doing
anything to undercut the brand. And we give you approval of all our images
and what we are saying about your product.

We do this for several companies and I would be happy to provide
references."

I used this very same pitch with the company at the Seattle Gift show and
we now represent their entire line on eBay and Amazon on an exclusive
basis.

20. Learn How to Use the Amazon Keywords tool
- When you create a listing, Amazon provides a field to list keywords.
Keywords are words or phrases that buyers type into the Amazon search box
to find products. But there are a couple of tips most sellers don't know.

Here is what the keyword field looks like in the Amazon Create a Product
form (This one is for a hot sauce product):

It is not necessary to repeat keywords that are in your title,
bullets and descriptions. The Title is the first place the Amazon
search engine looks. It is OK to repeat keywords from your bullets
and descriptions in the keyword field, but don't repeat keywords in
your keyword field that are in the title. Repeating a word in the
title in the keyword field is completely ignored by the Amazon search
robot.

One of the products I sell is outdoor firepits. But some people
type "fire pit" while others use "firepit," so if I use Firepit in
my title, I want to use "fire pit" as one of my keywords.

Although Amazon is pretty good at correcting spelling, they are not
perfect so I sometimes put popular misspellings in as keywords. A
few of the jewelry items I sell have turquoise stones in them and
a popular misspelling is "torurquoise," so I use that as one of my
keywords.

Basically try and think of what other words people might type in
when looking for something. For example, if you sell hand cream,
you would want to add hand lotion to your keywords. If
anything is called by different names always use all the other
names for it.

A large portion of the population learned their English the British way. Brits
use different words and spelling, so you may want to give some thought to that.
Just a few examples: They call the trunk of a car the boot, and a fanny
pack is a bumbag. They spell color as colour, licorice as Liquorice and
fiber as fibre. So give some thought to these when thinking up keywords

There is also a great keyword tool called
Merchantwords
-and it is optimized for Amazon. Using that link will get you a
very substantial discount that I arranged for my readers.

21. Amazon FBA Storage fees - FBA Storage fees can become costly.
Give some thought to the number of any one item you send to Amazon. First
determine how quickly an item sells. I like to send in at least a month's
supply plus a couple. I also look at how long it takes to reorder something
and plan accordingly. I have one product that sells about 24 per month that
takes me about three weeks to get delivery when I reorder. I order two or
three cases (of 24) at one time and send 24 to 27 units in at one time. Yes,
the extras take up a bit of storage space in my garage, but that is cheaper
than storing a 3-month supply at Amazon.

22. Be careful of specific material names in titles - Let's take
Turquoise as an example: I sell a necklace that uses an artificial stone
that looks like turquoise. Since it is not real turquoise, it is important I
state that by using an adjective such as Faux or Simulated before the word
turquoise in my title. Not doing this can lead to two things:

Customers will return items if they thanked they have been duped.

If a buyer complains to Amazon, you could receive a policy violation.

23. Watch what you name color - I have a plastic product where I
called the color Turquoise, but upon receipt, several buyers complained it
was just light blue, despite the photo showing the actual color. This did
not get me a policy violation, but it did lead to several product returns.

24. Avoid Shipping overcharges - UPS and FedEx have dimensional
weight surcharges when the size of a box exceeds certain parameters.
Dimensional weight, also known as volumetric weight, is a pricing technique
for commercial freight transport, which uses an estimated weight that is
calculated from the length, width and height of a package. A package that
exceeds 5000 cubic inches can incur an extra charge. For example a box that
measures 18 x 18 x 18 = 5,832 cubic inches. This would incur an extra
shipping charge. But if you shipped two smaller boxes with the same total
weight, then the total charge would be less.

Well that is it for my twenty-four tips. Over time I hope to grow this list as I
learn more tips. So you may want to check back on this article once in a
while. And if you have any tips you can think of that I may have missed,
please use the contact us form on this website to let me know.

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